After years of nomadic temporary employment, advanced degrees, and chocolate ice cream, a rugger with a love of knitting and a cyclist with no domestic skills signed a Ketubah and bought a house in Pittsburgh.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Dear Major Magazine

Thank you for the fabulously wonderful seeming online writing opportunity. Write for MAJOR MAGAZINE, you said, and I fell in love with the idea. A sports and fitness magazine for women! Hiring bloggers! It seemed too good to be true.

I received your contributor guidelines in my inbox this morning. Thank you for sending that 8-page set of guidelines. Those are, as you said, most thorough. You were most detailed in your explanation of compensation. My goodness! Almost $25 per week for only 10 "promotional postings," one detailed, researched, well-written article, and three posts to a community forum. That very nearly seems like minimum wage...in India. I can see how you might have gotten confused into thinking I could take such a job. I do, after all, spend most days wondering how I might fill the spare ten hours I would instead waste sleeping or eating ice pops after working out.

Major Magazine, I must say I am no longer interested in this position or really in reading or approving of your magazine. Please know that I am also a bit miffed at your parent company, who until this moment held a very esteemed place in my life. Perhaps sixty years from now, in my retirement, I will reconsider accepting this position and slaving for such low wages. Until then, I am afraid the compensation you offer does not match my needs for survival...or even cover my monthly internet bill at this time.

3 comments:

$25 a WEEK??Why do major companies think that artsy types will just take any job that pays them in their field? BULLshit. My sister-in-law gets the same thing all the time (she's a freelance illustrator). It's just plain insulting. But of course, there's some kid out there going, "Really? You'll pay me to write/draw? Awesome!" which makes them think it's ok.

Hang in there, Katy. There's gotta be someone out there who's willing to pay more than pennies for your hard work.

But if anyone is willing to work for this amount of money, they must not be able to get other jobs that actually pay them enough to do quality work, which means probably the work won't be very quality.

Obviously you can do better. It's even more ridiculous to offer that kind of money to someone with a resume like yours. Who has the cajones to do that?